


A Favoured Disguise

by deskclutter



Category: Rurouni Kenshin
Genre: Gen, Shinsengumi - Freeform, mildly spoilery for Kyoto Arc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-22
Updated: 2010-06-22
Packaged: 2017-10-10 05:36:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/96167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deskclutter/pseuds/deskclutter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Why does Saitou Hajime smile?</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Favoured Disguise

  
There was a battle over the rooftops of Kyoto. A pair of Shinsengumi captains encountered there the dreaded Hitokiri Battousai, with his killing gaze and crimson hair. They had said his hair was the colour of blood, the gossips among his peers, and Okita had giggled with the rest of them. How terrifying! How fearful this man must be!

How elevated his position must be for such a description to be spread by the Ishin Shishi, Saitou had said.

The First Captain of the Shinsengumi had huffed with exasperation. Saitou-kun has absolutely no romance within his soul, he had said.

Ha! Harada had smirked. He's just jealous that he's never going to be able to beat Battousai, because _I_ claim that honour.

Ah! Ah! Okita had laughed. Not if I get there first, Harada-kun!

The crescent of his smile never wavered, a constant even as Saitou's eyes narrowed, a pair of waning moons in the implacable night of his remorseless face.

  
The man known as Fujita Gorou the policeman remembers this conversation as he prepares for his day's work. His sword flashes once as he runs through his daily kata. A fang, someone called it once.

Ridiculous. A sword is a sword, and no matter how much it seems a part of him, there was once when he survived without it, and if he must to survive in this new age, he will do so again.

  
The poets spoke of that night with all the fervour of lovesick swains. They spoke of the cunning of Hijikata Toshizou, the sublime leadership of Kondou Isami, the swordsmanship of Okita Souji. They spoke of the swiftness of the Shinsengumi blade, the deadly dance of the Miburo that night.

They spoke of Okita's battle frenzy, the whirlwind of bloodshed that the usually amiable First Captain became, to the point where he had collapsed at the end of the battle. He had coughed blood, rivulets of red running from his mouth to join the stain of blood spattered on his once-pristine uniform by the battle

Harada grabbed Saitou's arm the morning after. "How the hell did none of us know about this," he demanded, eyes ablaze.

Saitou glared at the Tenth Captain. "Don't lump me with you morons. Unlike you, I am not blind."

Harada snarled. "You knew. _You knew_. How the _hell_ could you have let him go out like that?"

"I had my reasons," Saitou replied. "They do not concern you." He shook Harada off and began to walk away.

"He's a captain of the Shinsengumi!" Harada yelled. "Of course it concerns me!"

Saitou stopped. "Do you think so highly of yourself?" he asked quietly, menacingly. "I notice that Okita himself did not see fit to inform you. I would also venture that neither Kondou nor Hijikata are blind. _Think_, Harada." He continued on his way.

When he entered Okita's room, the ahou was still smiling.

  
Their vice captain had not left the box to him. Nevertheless, only two of them remain to this day. Take it, Nagakura had told him when he had asked to borrow it. Nagakura understood.

There are few enemies Saitou has brought alive into the new era, and fewer who have not achieved positions which make their elimination difficult.

There is one whose elimination is not merely for his country, but comrades who have died. They lived for a swift death to evil; they died for their beliefs. They were elite swordsman, and to be a swordsman is to surpass one's opponents. To be Shinsengumi is to be the best.

For this battle it is essential to allow them to be there.

  
Saitou Hajime is not blind. He sees the tremble in Okita's hands and hears the slight rasp in his voice. He hears the cough of a sick man and he scents the blood that lingers.

Tonight is the night of a battle over Kyoto, and Saitou Hajime knows Okita Souji is ill.

Tonight is not so terrible a night to reveal that he, too, knows.

Battousai is not all his legend says. He is not tall, and though his hair is red and his eyes the eyes of a killer, their own hair have long become matted by the viscous blood of slain foes and their eyes have long been the eyes of killers. The difference between them are their sides and that Battousai lurks in the shadows while the Shinsengumi work in the day, but even so, the First and Third Captains of the Shinsengumi are no strangers to the business of the night

Their eyes are the eyes of killers, but while Saitou wears his true nature on his merciless eyes and his smirking mouth; in the tone of his voice and his predatory walk, Okita hides.

Okita hides the truth as he has done for so long.

Okita hides...behind a smile.

  
Today he will confront Hitokiri Battousai. His work demands it; no nonsense about the suppression of the hitokiri may be tolerated.

Today he puts on his katana with the intent he once saved for the battlefield. He remembers an old battle of another era, and comrades who once boasted of killing this man whose house he will visit today.

The era has changed, but the man has not. He is a wolf of Mibu, the second sword of the Shinsengumi, and he has continued into the Meiji. He will continue until the day death claims him at last, but for now, for today, he lives.

Today he takes Hijikata Toshizou's medicine box and hefts it upon his back. Today he is Fujita Gorou on a secret assignment, but he is also Saitou Hajime, Third Captain of the Shinsengumi. The Third Captain of the Shinsengumi and Hitokiri Battousai never finished their duel, a remainder of Sengoku Jidai, as is the medicine box upon his back, as is the bond tying him to Nagakura Shinpachi.

Today Saitou Hajime will extend the first challenge to the so-called Himura Kenshin. It is time to bring an end to this battle.

There is but one last remnant of his disguise to add. It is another remainder of the Warring Era, the favoured disguise of one of the best loved of the Shinsengumi.

Saitou Hajime smiles.


End file.
